


feels like we were built from the same dirt

by godmarked



Series: PROMPTOBER 2020 [6]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, First Kiss, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Light Angst, Love Confessions, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26835940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godmarked/pseuds/godmarked
Summary: It becomes a thing between the two of them. Bringing each other meals when they miss them leads to Charlie showing up and dragging Nate down to eat every night, strong hand wrapped tight around his wrist. They don’t talk about it during the months that pass, even when Nate refuses to be led to dinner or when Charlie comes along but doesn’t eat. There’s a mutual understanding between them that sometimes it’s just not something they can choose to overcome, so trying will have to be enough.
Relationships: Background Original Female Character/Original Nonbinary Character, Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Series: PROMPTOBER 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945378
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	feels like we were built from the same dirt

**Author's Note:**

> **prompt #06: they say the best blaze brightest when circumstances are at their worst.**   
>  _prompt from howl's moving castle / title from wilbur soot's 'your sister was right'_

When their mother dies, Trouble is angry. Nate doesn’t know how she manages it, the endless well of rage she pulls from as she throws herself into hunting the men who killed Ciara Bishop down. He doesn’t know how to feel anything other than lost and empty, in a village of people who hate him, with the only link he had to his home dead. With the knowledge that the people from his home would kill him just as easily as they had killed his mother, for the small crime of getting lost. 

“Eat.” The word is short and sharp, dragging Nate out of his thoughts as he looks up to see Charlie standing above him, pointing down at the bowl of soup she just placed in front of him. 

“I’m not hungry,” he lies, even though he doesn’t remember the last time he ate and his stomach feels like it’s trying to curl in and eat itself alive. It’s something to feel other than all-consuming nothingness, at least. 

Charlie kicks the chair across from him out from under the table, collapsing into it. “Bullshit,” she says, grey eyes hard. “Fucking eat, Nate.” 

For a long stretch, they just sit there in silence, Charlie staring resolutely and Nate staring defiantly back. There’s no pity or disgust mixed into her eyes, nothing like what the other surface-dwellers have been regarding him with since he got stuck down here. She’s just… looking, eyes like stone, no emotions to be found. 

“...fine,” he acquiesces, picking up the spoon. Charlie relaxes, and the violet tattoos that cover her body shine a little bit brighter as she watches him take a bite. Then another, and another, as it hits him just how hungry he’d actually  _ been _ . The soup is gone embarrassingly fast, and Charlie has a satisfied grin pulling at the edges of her mouth. “Alright, I was hungry,” he grumbles, and she snorts. 

“I know that,” she replies. “You skipped all three meals yesterday, and then you didn’t show up to dinner today.” A flush spreads across her face as she looks away. “I was worried,” she admits stiffly. “It’s not like you aren’t skinny enough already.” 

Nate can feel his own cheeks heating up, infinitely more obvious against his pale skin than it is when Charlie blushes. “Oh,” he says, wincing when his voice cracks. “So you  _ do  _ care,” he continues, trying his best to sound sarcasting and biting like he usually does. He can tell that it doesn’t quite work, but it makes Charlie crack a grin. 

“No one will ever believe you,” she informs him with a sniff, still smiling. Something in her gaze softens as she looks over him, reaching across the table and tugging the collar of his jacket into place. “You look… exhausted,” she tells him, but there’s no malice in his voice and her hand lingers near his shoulder. “Nate, when was the last time you slept?” 

“I’m fine,” Nate says, brushing her hand away. “You don’t- you don’t have to be nice to me just because my mother died,” he says, and the words hurt to say, but the look of shock and hurt that glances across Charlie’s face hurts more. “You don’t have to pretend.” 

Her hand curls into a fist as she stands up, and for a moment Nate thinks- hopes, prays -that she’s going to punch him for being an asshole. But she doesn’t, just turns away and says “Fine,” in a tone of voice that he’s never heard from her, thick and stilted. “I guess the best are supposed to blaze brightest when circumstances are their worst, aren’t they?” 

The words are a compliment, but the way she says it just makes him feel small and alone. Charlie leaves him alone with the empty bowl, and Nate curls in on himself and cries. 

-

Two days later, Charlie still hasn’t spoken a word to him. He sees her lugging a deer back to the camp, and their eyes meet across the distance before Charlie pointedly looks away, scowling. When Nate ventures to dinner that night, she’s nowhere to be seen, her usual spot near Quincey and Kal left empty. 

He eats as quickly as he can and goes back for another plate, carrying it carefully across the camp to the small building where Charlie spends most of her time. It’s dark inside, not lit by fire or moonlight; the only source of vision the faint violet glow from Charlie’s markings. She’s working by that faint light, carefully arranging cleaned bones. 

He sits down across from her and puts the plate down, silently sliding it towards her, careful not to mess with the bones. Her hands still over the bones, hair hanging in her face so Nate can’t see what expression she’s making. 

Eventually, she speaks. “Why would you bring food to someone who only  _ pretends _ to like you out of pity?” She asks, voice hard. “Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, flyboy.” 

“I wouldn’t,” he says softly. “But it turns out it’s pretty concerning when your friend skips out on eating the dinner she hunted.” 

She looks up at him, and Nate’s breath catches in his throat. With her braids undone, her bangs hand in her face and the long strands near her ears hang down to her ribcage, framing her face in pale hair that shines like moonlight in the light from her markings. “You’re an asshole,” she tells him, and he can see her eyes are wet. “I fucking hate you,” she continues, scrubbing a hand against her face. 

He shifts the bowl towards her. “Eat, Charlie.” 

She does, and something in his chest loosens. 

-

It becomes a thing between the two of them. Bringing each other meals when they miss them leads to Charlie showing up and dragging Nate down to eat every night, strong hand wrapped tight around his wrist. They don’t talk about it during the months that pass, even when Nate refuses to be led to dinner or when Charlie comes along but doesn’t eat. There’s a mutual understanding between them that sometimes it’s just not something they can choose to overcome, so trying will have to be enough. 

It lasts until he overhears Quincey and Kal. 

Charlie’s on night patrol, so Nate eats alone before gathering a bread roll and some fish for her, planning to trek out to the camp’s border to make sure she eats. The air is filled with voices, dozens of conversations spilling out as people laugh and eat, but Quincey and Kal’s voices stand out due to familiarity. 

“Aw, bringing me food?” Quincey asks Kal, lighthearted and teasing. “Bit soon to get married, isn’t it?” 

The only thing that stops Nate from tripping and dropping the plate in his hands is years of rigorous acrobatics training, but even that can’t stop him from nearly breaking his neck as he whips around to stare at them. Kal is pulling a face, putting down two plates on their table, and Quincey is looking at them with undeniable fondness in her eyes. “What did you just say?” Nate asks, breathless. 

Quincey raises her eyebrows. “Oh, I guess you wouldn’t know,” she says, humming under her breath. “It’s this old tribe tradition- like,  _ really _ old, before your dad was in charge -about bringing someone food as a form of proposal.” She shrugs, brown curls bouncing with the movement. “It’s less serious, now, but that’s something people who love each other do. When you love someone, you make sure they eat well. Why do you ask?” 

Quincey, Kal, and Nate all drop their gazes to the plate in his hands. Nate says, sounding strangled, “I think I’m a fucking idiot,” before turning around and running as fast as he can without spilling the food. 

“Weird kid,” Kal says, staring after him. “Can’t imagine what your sister sees in the guy.” 

Quincey leans across the table and smacks their shoulder. “Shut up and eat, loser.” 

-

Charlie is sitting at her post, spear leaning against the wall next to her and bow cradled loosely in her lap as she gazes out into the forest that surrounds the camp. There’s a reanimated mouse sitting on the wall, also peering out, and Nate imagines there are several more in the forest keeping watch. 

“Hey,” Charlie greets, reaching out for the plate. “Thanks for bringing me dinner.” 

Nate lets her take it from him before he tells her. “Quincey told me what it means,” he admits, staring at her. “About the tradition.” 

Her cheeks flush and her eyes widen, and then narrow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she denies, taking a bite out of the bread roll and not quite meeting his gaze. “It’d be impossible for me to have every single one of our traditions memorized,” she grumbles around the mouthful, and Nate knows that she’s lying. 

“Oh,” he says, instead of that. “That’s a shame.” 

Her gaze snaps to his. “What?” 

He swallows, and unclenches his hands. He thinks about every time she helped him, how many times she sat next to him quietly or rubbed his back while he cried or saved him from monsters he didn’t know how to fight. He remembers the look on her face the first time he saved _ her _ , nothing but wind beneath their feet as she clung to him, grey eyes wide and glittering with something he hadn’t been able to name. “I said it’s a shame,” he repeats. “Because I’m in love with you.” 

The roll falls out of her hand and hits the ground, bouncing once before stilling. She’s staring at him again, lips parted just slightly as her tattoos light up, purple glow stronger than he’s ever seen it. “If you’re messing with me I’ll kill you,” Charlie whispers, and Nate knows that she’s not kidding in the slightest. 

“I think I’ve been in love with you since you knocked me down and took my gun,” he admits, holding himself a little stiffly. “Apparently I have a thing for girls who are mean to me.” (Somewhere, he knows that Damaris is laughing at him.) 

Charlie makes a half-strangled noise he thinks might be a laugh. “You’re serious,” she realizes, and then she’s crossing the small space between them with purposeful steps and bending down to kiss him. 

Nate finds his hands fisting in her shirt as he kisses her back, and he makes a small noise of surprise as she crowds him against the wall, shoulders sloping down to meet his height. One of her hands cups his face and the other presses against his waist, long fingers like a brand even through his jacket and shirt. 

“Christ,” he says when they break apart. Charlie grins down at him, lips kiss-bitten and red. “How are you so  _ tall _ ?” he mumbles, and she throws her head back laughing. 

“How are you so short?” she teases, and Nate flushes. She’s still close enough that he can see the metal filaments in her tattoos, close enough to see the way her eyelashes are paler at the ends than at the base, close enough to see the little scar on her chin. 

She pulls him down to sit next to her, draping one of her ankles across his while she fiddles with her bow. “You know I love you too, right?” she asks, and Nate grins, letting the words fill him with warmth. 

Nate grins, and gestures to the forgotten plate. “If you love me,” he says, “then eat.” 

**Author's Note:**

> this one is a Leetle Bit Short and is more self indulgent oc stuff. charlie and nate are babies and i love them
> 
> if you're reading this you probably already know where to find me on social media and it's very late so i'm not copying over the links but if you're new my twit and tumblr are linked on literally every other fic i've ever posted xooxoxoxoxxoxoxox


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